Sacred Heart Church (Phoenix, Arizona)

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Sacred Heart Church is the last remaining building of a South Phoenix neighborhood between 12th and 24th Streets, just north of the Maricopa freeway, known as the Golden Gate Barrio. The Golden Gate barrio was a largely Mexican community and one of the fomenting points of the Chicano movment and Human rights activism by people such as César Chavez, and had performers perform, such as James Brown, at the Calderone Ballroom, until it was slowly demolished by the city of Phoenix, Arizona through abuses of eminent domain and by designating the barrio a blighted area, in order to clear the way for expansion and noise abatement of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

The name Golden Gate has no connection to San Francisco's famous bridge. By oral tradition, the name may have been derived from the metal on the front door of a farmhouse that once stood in the area, and where Mexican farmers often worked. Soon, a community of migrant workers grew around the farm. But it would be the 1960s before the city of Phoenix would build proper sewers, paved streets, and other amenities to the area. Today, the church is all that remains, sitting alone and unused on a 20 acre lot.

As early as the 1940’s, many viewed it as a blighted slum. Most Phoenix residents never ventured south, past Harrison Street, into Golden Gate. Despite this isolation, the barrio enjoyed a brief renaissance as its residents became major forces in the Chicano activism of the 1960s and 1970s, along the way creating social service organizations such as Chicanos Por La Causa and Valle Del Sol.

Today the houses are gone, sacrificed to development, and the expansion of Sky Harbor Airport. Now the city, former residents and the barrio’s own non-profit organizations find themselves at odds over the fate of Sacred Heart Church. Yet community members recall a vibrant, cohesive blue-collar neighborhood in the early ‘70s at this corner of 17th Street and Tonto.

BRING ME A BRICK In 1952, a congregation sat in church, under a makeshift ramada of palm fronds and wood, listening to the Sunday sermon of 65-year-old Reverend Albert Braun. They listened to the clergyman who had just left a teaching job at St. Mary’s High School so he could minister to Golden Gate. For Braun, this should have been a hard-earned retirement. Only seven years before, he had been a prisoner in the Bataan Death Marches of World War II. But he had too much vitality left to sit still. Braun challenged the small congregation to build a more permanent structure for their community. “Bring me a brick, and we will build a church,” Braun said, as remembered by many former members of the community.

Over the next two years, Golden Gate residents met Braun’s challenge and the walls of Sacred Heart Church rose. In April 1954, the first baptism was held before the roof had been raised. Along the way, Braun secretly set aside bricks to build a parochial school. When the school’s construction was done, Braun announced its completion to the Catholic Diocese. Despite the surprise and displeasure of diocesan officials, Braun didn’t stop there.

By the time his health forced him to retire in 1962, Braun had founded three more chapels in the area. He had coerced the city into paving roads, building sidewalks, providing gas and adding a sewer system. Crime dropped, pride lifted and seeds of a real community were sown.

Guided by Braun, the barrio flowered over the following decade. By the early 1970’s, the parish had produced great ideas, some of which still exist: Chicanos Por La Causa, Valle del Sol and the Head Start Children’s Foundation. Humbler ventures such as Phoenix’s first elderly day care center, El Rinconcito, also found its origins in Golden Gate.

But in the midst of this activism, the neighborhood was struggling just to survive and pay its bills. For all the progress, one thing had not changed. They were still poor.

BEGINNING OF THE END The same year Sacred Heart built its entrance, Phoenix’s master plan of 1956 forecast Golden Gate’s demise to make way for airport expansion. When the city let the public participate in developing a revised master development plan during the late 1960’s, Golden Gate was able to exercise what little muscle it had. The city agreed with residents that areas west of the airport – their barrio – would remain residential, except for a clear zone extending to 16th Street (a promise later broken).

In 1974, the city prepared for expansion with an Environmental Impact Study. It described a relocation program, citing lower unemployment rates and improved property values. Yet the study ignored Golden Gate’s fixed incomes, high property taxes, and the disruption of its elementary schools. These realities were obvious, but Phoenix, dominated by the Phoenix Forty, a powerful pro-development group of businessmen and local leaders, was determined to protect its own interests.

In June 1977, a notice in TheArizona Republic announced Phoenix would begin buying properties to the west of Sky Harbor. Golden Gate barrio was to be razed. In reality, the city had been snatching up properties in the area since 1969, undermining the barrio’s foundations. Braun’s efforts were fading and the Chicano movement began to stall. Houses were left vacant, vandalized and were lost to arson. Gangs began to form. Life became harder, as home values plummeted and lending institutions refused to give home improvement loans.

The final insult was the city’s offer to buy residents out at severely undercut prices. When homeowners hesitated, the threat of eminent domain forced their hand. The besieged community rallied behind its Wilson School district, in hopes a lawsuit would stall the city’s advance. In October 1979, the district filed suit, claiming the expansion was impeding the community’s ability to teach students, and hampered opportunities for teachers to find work.

The suit failed. The district settled out of court for more than $8 million and relinquished its two schools. In 1981 the city began to buy property at a fast pace, pushing its reach to 12th Street. The barrio’s final desperate salvo led to a checkmate when residents inadvertently conceded defeat by asking the city to allow them two years to negotiate. Less than six months after the deadline, the city declared Golden Gate a slum. Now people could be moved out faster and the neighborhoo destroyed.

Public consensus was that the community would have better lives. In an Arizona Republic editorial, publisher Pat Murphy wrote, “Everyone in Phoenix, including the most recent immigrant from Mexico, benefits because the city is blessed with an expanding airport…They should be able to live happier, healthier lives in the better housing that the city is supplying them.”

In truth, residents were forced into less expensive areas such as Maryvale. Others drifted back to neighborhoods around the old barrio they knew, this time as renters.

In March 1983, just as Father Braun passed away, the city moved from acquisition to development. Its crown jewel was Sky Harbor Center, a $500 million industrial and commercial park, replete with a hotel, offices, day care, gyms and light industrial space. It would create 14,000 jobs and millions in revenue for the city. Golden Gate’s replacement would serve as a noise buffer between surrounding communities and planes that left the tarmac each day.

Abraham F. Arvizu, and his son, Abe Jr. could only watch in sadness as a river of people flowed into Sacred Heart on Christmas Day 1985. Just days before, The Arizona Republic reported the Diocese of Phoenix had sold the church to the City of Phoenix for $1.2 million dollars. Golden Gate’s beloved Rev. Braun had only been gone two years.

By 1986, the city had spent more than $90 million to buy 800 acres and relocate 6,000 people, 200 businesses and several churches. It was time to get a return on its investment. The only structure left to deal with was Sacred Heart. But the community fought back.

REACHING THE LIMIT Each year since 1988, former residents gather for Christmas Mass at Sacred Heart. They can no longer use a nearby parking lot the city has landlocked with sidewalks and fences, and yet not used for any purpose. Still the parishioners come, the elderly shuffling through the dirt and memories. As this band of neighbors age, their children carry on the tradition.

In March 1988 the city council gave in to pressure by the communty, saying a non-profit organization was welcome to lease the church and transform it into a cultural center and museum. The community had six months to find a group that could do this.

Only one group stepped forward.

Residents had turned to Abe Arvizu, Jr., the outspoken son of a former local activist. Arvizu, along with Dr. Pete Dimas, Dr. Santos Vega, Joe Torres and others quickly formed the Braun-Sacred Heart Center and submitted a proposal for the church as a cultural center, museum, amphitheater and park. Since then, the struggle to complete their mission has been long and unsuccessful, to date.

The non-profit group found support and help from Koll, the corporation that seemed destined to build Sky Harbor Center. Funds were to be set aside to incorporate the cultural center into the overall development, and Phoenix was poised to receive a cultural center similar to the National Hispanic Cultural Center built in Albuquerque in 2000 (the NHCC property includes an historic church). Amends could be made for the past.

THE INHERITANCE Soon after Koll began working with the Braun-Sacred Heart Center group, the city stepped in again, requesting that the allotted monies (which amounted to $300,000) be used in other ways. Arvizu and his colleagues were forced to seek funding elsewhere. Koll cautiously backed out of the project, leaving Braun-Sacred Heart Center fighting for Sacred Heart’s right to even exist.

With the loss of Golden Gate came a fracturing of Latino unity. The organizations that first saw light there have begun to feud over the plans they have for redevelopment. As Chicanos Por La Causa sits on $600,000 allotted by Housing and Urban Development to build 125,000 square feet of offices, retail space, a hotel and a Chicano Cultural Center (involving Santa Rita Hall), it moves forward with its own Sacred Heart agenda.

There were offers to move the church, but dismantling and rebuilding Sacred Heart also is problematic. In 2006, Kevin Weight, a lead historic preservation planner with the City’s Historic Preservation office, explained that to move or making structural changes to Sacred Heart will jeopardize its historical qualification.

People who have encircled Sacred Heart Church for more than two decades are beginning to fade. In August the Braun-Sacred Heart group lost Joe Torres, aged 78. He had wanted to have his funeral inside the church, but that was not possible.

As Braun-Sacred Heart struggled to find funding, its members submitted another proposal in 2006, including a hotel, convention center, a gas station and more. Though the city appeared to remain indifferent, there were whispers of back room deals and of the City's disinterest in sharing any project.

Now that the church has been deemed eligible for the Phoenix Historic Register and National Register, it is also eligible for Heritage funding. Once added, Phoenix officials could give grant funds through the city’s bond dollars set aside for historic preservation, a feat performed for the nearby "Tovrea Castle."

Only a non-profit organization, like Braun-Sacred Heart or a government entity, can apply for these grants, enabling the city of Phoenix to step in and right any past wrongs by providing the money and manpower to save Sacred Heart and boost its viability as a cultural center.

The city has tried to placate the community with community meetings, while aviation officials work with a few former residents to put together a memorial mural project commemorating the barrio’s history - consisting of three murals to be painted on walls near the 2.5 million-square-foot rental car facility that earns the city $31 million annually in rent alone, as of 2006. As the city meets intermittently with real estate companies, the remaining 20 acres of dirt are left to shrink like a dissipating moat around Sacred Heart.

The community still waits, as CPLC, the city, developers and private investors continue to debate Sacred Heart, in a city that does not have a Hispanic cultural center.

Sources:

1. Arizona Republic, October 28, 1971
2. Arizona Republic, Fri. June 29, 1979
3. Arizona Republic, June 3, 1977
4. Arizona Republic, March 27, 1987
5. Arizona Republic, January 22, 1990
6. Arizona Republic, July 14, 1978
7. Arizona Republic, July 8, 1982
8. Arizona Republic, September 28, 1982
9. Arizona Republic, January 16, 1985
10. Arizona Republic, June 3, 1988
11. Arizona Republic, March 8, 1983
12. The Phoenix Gazette, December 28, 1985
13. The Phoenix Gazette, April 24, 1985
14. Latino Perspectives Magazine, September 2007
15. Progress and a Mexican American Community's struggle for existence: Phoenix's Golden Gate Barrio, by Pete R. Dimas. Arizona State University, 1991.
16. Correspondence between Arizona Historic Preservation office, Pastor Tony Towns Jr.
17. Various taped interviews with Sky Harbor Aviation Board, Sky Harbor employees, Pete Dimas, Frank Barrios, Abe Arvizu, Jr, in 2006.
18. Recuerdos: Memories of life in the Barrios Unidos - Phoenix Arizona.
By Santos C. Vega, Ph.D., 2003.
19. Master plan of 1956, and various other City Planning Documents, all available in the Arizona Room at City of Phoenix Burton Barr Public Library.